One Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby 7s under-19s title win would be considered a major achievement.
A handful of championships would be impressive.
But with Dubai College saluting in the final of the competition at the weekend, the school made it a perfect 10 tournament wins.
In front of packed house of 40,000 fans at the Sevens Stadium, Dubai College overcame Dubai English Speaking College 17-10 to hold up the winners’ trophy.
Being cheered onto the podium to accept their trophy, DC director of sport Andrew Jones said the players were elated.
“The players were ecstatic,” he said.
“Having the opportunity to play in such an amazing stadium and huge crowd gave the boys a very unique opportunity.
“For the coaches it was a tremendous feeling of satisfaction, seeing the boys playing such a high level of rugby.”
With such a large crowd assembled, Jones said the team’s coaches urged players to play treat the match as just another game.
“Prior to the game and at half time, we emphasised simple messages of what needed to be done in order to be successful,” he said.
“The key thing was to focus on performance and not get caught up in the emotion of the event.”
But knowing the grandeur of the Dubai Sevens tournament, Jones also urged the players to soak in the atmosphere.
“We also emphasised being in the moment and enjoying the experience,” he said.
“The tournament is tremendous and we are so thankful to the organisers for still providing local under-19 teams the opportunity of playing on the main pitch with such huge crowds.”
“We also enjoyed the excitement of the knock out stages, which gave all involved a real buzz of excitement.”
Fantastic preparation from Dubai College’s strength and conditioning coach showed when Dubai College went through the competition without a loss.
DC cruised throughout the quarter-final and semi-final on Friday, following on from a sensational opening day when the school did not concede a single point from three matches.
Five boys from this year’s winning squad will return next year putting Dubai College on track for win number 11.
Under-19s boys tournament runners up DESC remained a formidable opponent, also not letting past a score until the finals of the event.
In the under-19s girls division British School Al Khubairat put forward competitive performances, before being felled in the semi-final by Dubai Exiles.
Exiles went on to take top honours by overcoming Dubai Knights Eagles in a closely fought 15-10 win in the final.
Netball is now also a major component of the Dubai Sevens tournament and the competition produced some epic battles in the final.
Dubai College just fell short in the top-tier division, with Centurion Warriors Blues taking the spoils 9-7.
The Plate trophy could have gone to either Jumeirah College or Dubai English Speaking College 1 with the former sneaking home by one goal.
Relative to these scores, what could be considered a comfortable win saw KZN Warriors overcome Repton Warriors by four goals.
The finals of the Youth Netball Sevens competition also took place at the Sevens Stadium with Dubai College experiencing more success when its under-15s girls triumphed over JESS.
But JESS still brought home some silverware in the under-11s with a win over DESS while DESC claimed the under-13s title.